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A Tory, His Bike and an Ill-Chosen Insult

LONDON — For an ambitious politician, it is rarely a good idea to lose your cool — and never with the police. But Andrew Mitchell apparently compounded the error further by deriding police officers as his social inferiors, and that has turned a small incident into a big political headache for Prime Minister David Cameron and his ruling Conservative Party.

Mr. Cameron has been trying for years to “detoxify” the Conservatives and their image as an elitist, “nasty party,” emphasizing instead that all recession-hit Britons are “in this together.” But class distinctions still run deep in Britain, resentments are easily inflamed and Mr. Mitchell, the party’s chief whip in the House of Commons, played straight into them with his behavior and, the police say, with one searing word.

It seems that Mr. Mitchell was preparing to leave 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister has his official residence, last Wednesday evening on his bicycle when police officers on duty at the main gate there told him that he could not ride through and would have to use a side gate. He erupted in dudgeon and profanity, telling the officers that they should learn their place and, according to the police report, that they were “plebs” — as highhanded and contemptuous a way of calling them worthless nobodies as there is in Britain.

Mr. Mitchell later apologized for his behavior, and he denied using that word, which was attributed to him in a police log that was leaked to The Daily Telegraph. But the furor over the incident refused to die down, not least because Mr. Mitchell, a clean-cut former banker, has a curriculum vitae to match that of any snooty British villain from central casting.

He was educated at the Rugby School, one of the most famous of Britain’s private schools and the setting of the novel “Tom Brown’s Schooldays,” and as a prefect there, he had a reputation as a harsh disciplinarian, prompting the British news media to liken him to Flashman, the novel’s villain.

“Pleb” was a common insult at such schools in the early 1970s, when Mr. Mitchell attended, and it is the allegation of sneering, rather than bullying, that could cost him his job.

According to the police log, cited by The Daily Telegraph, Mr. Mitchell, after refusing several times to get off his bicycle, berated the officers at the gate within earshot of passing pedestrians, ending with the “plebs” remark gilded with an expletive.

“I cannot say if this statement was aimed at me individually, or the officers present or the police service as a whole,” the officer writing the log recorded, adding that Mr. Mitchell had been warned that if he continued to swear he would be arrested.

Photo

Andrew Mitchell arriving last year at 10 Downing Street. He got into an argument with officers there last week over his bicycle.Credit
Yui Mok/Press Association, via Associated Press

“Mr. Mitchell was then silent and left saying ‘you haven’t heard the last of this’ as he cycled off,” the log entry says.

It is Mr. Mitchell, though, who has not heard the last of the incident. After a dressing down from Mr. Cameron, Mr. Mitchell apologized in front of television cameras on Monday, saying the episode came after a “long and frustrating” day’s work while conceding that that was no excuse.

Asked to comment, a spokesman for the Cabinet Office, who asked not to be named in line with official policy, said: “Andrew Mitchell has made it absolutely clear that he apologizes for the incident that occurred and that he behaved in a way he shouldn’t have. He has apologized to the police officer and that apology has been accepted.”

So far, Mr. Cameron is standing by Mr. Mitchell, even though the embarrassment followed the prime minister to New York and dominated questions from British reporters traveling with him to the United Nations.

Mr. Mitchell’s anger fueled debate about a culture of entitlement at the top of a government led by the affluent Mr. Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, and what opponents call a “cabinet of millionaires.”

Before his recent promotion to chief whip, Mr. Mitchell was in charge of overseas development and stood out as an example of a softer strain of Conservatism. The fact that he was leaving Downing Street on a bicycle and not in a limousine reflected a desire to be seen as accessible and environmentally friendly.

With the government trying to bury the episode, Mr. Mitchell is keeping a low profile, perhaps seeing the best hope of saving his career in the Rugby School motto, which, naturally, is in Latin: “Orando, laborando” — prayer and work.

A version of this article appears in print on September 27, 2012, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: A Tory, His Bike and an Ill-Chosen Insult. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe